What Happened? 2013 Technology News

The world of technology kept it's pace with more start-ups making waves with valuations in the billions.

Wares, both soft and hard 

Twitter had a busy year when it finally exercised it's exit strategy by launching it's IPO on the Nasdaq.

Snapchat, the little photo app that could turned down billions from both Facebook and Google.

The consoles wars kicked into full swing with the release of Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's XBox One.

Several tech watches from the Samsung Galaxy Gear to the Pebble smartwatch were released adding to the years wearable tech fad started with Google Glass.

4K TV, also known as Ultra HD, made its appearance instantly making people groan after having splurged on 3D and HD TV's.

Apple kept it's turn around time on track launching the next incarnation of the iPhone in 2 flavors, the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

Governments behaving badly

The Chinese were busy hacking away at everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the US Government.
 
Edward Snowden opened the worlds eyes to the NSA's spying on both American's and foreigners through electronic systems.

Space

Astronaut, Chris Hadfield, kept the world entertained with his social space updates leaving the ISS singing the David Bowie song "Space Oddity".

The ISS (International Space Station) ran into issues when a leak was detected requiring shutting down of various elements. 3 space walks were scheduled to replace the faulty pump.

China became the third country to successfully complete a "soft landing" on the moon with Jade Rabbit.

And in an "about time" moment, the US government finally acknowledged the existence of Area 51. Space related? You decide.

Space, it's been busy up there

Attention was focused towards the heavens with space agencies going above and beyond.

Jade Rabbit hops into history

China became the third country to successfully make a "soft landing" on the surface of the moon. The Jade Rabbit mission, designed to conduct scientific experiments, was declared a success by China. China has said they plan to launch another in 2017 to collect soil samples to return to earth followed by a mission in 2020 to land a Chinese astronaut on the moon.

Gaia's billion star mission

The ESA (European Space Agency) launched the Gaia mission aboard a Soyuz rocket to "decipher the history of the milky way". The mission is designed to accurately measure the positions and motions of roughly 100 billion stars.

A stroll, at 8km/s, through space

Astronauts on board the ISS will get 3 space walks to do essential repairs to the International Space Station replacing a malfunctioning pump which required emergency procedures leaving some experiments offline.

All talk?

A new robot companion, Kirobo, has taken up residence on the ISS to talk with Japanese astronaught, Koichi Wakata. The robot is designed to process questions and construct answers instead of a pre-programmed response.

Like new

NASA reactivated NEOWISE,the Asteroid-Hunting Probe, after 2.5 years of hibernation. The probe has sent back it's first images in an attempt to find potentially dangerous asteroids or some for exploration.